Market Update: Visa Inc (NYSE:V) – Visa drops earn-out portion of Visa Europe deal, cuts forecast

[Reuters] – Visa Inc, the world’s largest payments network operator, said it increased the cash consideration of its deal to buy Visa Europe and eliminated the earn-out portion. Visa said it now expects its full-year revenue to grow between 7 percent to 8 percent, lower than its previous forecast of high single-digits to low-double digits. The cash consideration of the deal will be increased by 1.75 billion euros ($1.97 billion), replacing the earn-out option, following feedback from the European Commission, the company said on Thursday. Read more on this. Visa Inc. (V) , currently valued at $194.01B, started trading this morning at $81.50. Today, shares have traded between $80.68 and $81.67 per share and has traded between $60.00 and $81.73 over the past 12 months. Visa (V) shares are currently priced at 28.98x this year’s forecasted earnings, which makes them relatively expensive compared to the industry’s 14.69x earnings multiple for the same period. And for dividend hunters, the company pays shareholders $0.56 per share annually in dividends, yielding 0.69%. In a review of the consensus earnings estimate this quarter, 34 sell-side analysts are looking at $0.67 per share, which would be $0.04 better than the year-ago quarter and a $0.03 sequential decrease. In looking at the bigger picture, the full-year EPS estimate of $2.80 would be a $0.18 improvement when compared to the previous year’s annual results. The quarterly earnings estimate is based on a consensus revenue forecast of the current quarter of $3.60 Billion. If realized, that would be a 5.57% increase over the year-ago quarter. In terms of ratings, Compass Point Initiated V at Neutral (Apr 15, 2016). Previously, BofA/Merrill downgraded V from Buy to Neutral. When considering if perhaps the stock is under or overvalued, the average price target is $86.94, which is 6.67% above where the stock opened this morning. See more in (NYSE:V) Similar Articles: Stock Update: Visa Inc (NYSE:V) – Just in Time for Tax Season, Canadians Can Now Pay Taxes Online With Visa Debit Company Update: Visa Inc (NYSE:V) – Planet Payment and Visa to Deliver Processing Solutions Across the Globe Market Update: Visa Inc (NYSE:V) – UPDATE – Visa and Movember Put ‘Mo Fun’ in Unique Fundraising Campaign